If you are a mature individual who has raised and educated your children, it is way past time for you to start thinking about yourself. If you are young and just starting out, you need to think about this as well, but fortunately for you, it will be much less costly. In the long run, having a game plan about this will help your offspring because you won't have to move in with them because you outlived your resources. Especially if you have suffered a divorce and have found that what was a good plan for two is now a pretty weak plan for one, you need to catch up. It is emotionally arousing to think about, but if you are lucky and don't die young, this sort of planning now is the most optimistic way of saying to yourself and your kids: Hey, I'm going to live for long time and enjoy the grandbabies. You need to take care of yourself first now. Inflation, stock markets downturns, international unrest and increasing cost of medical care seem to indicate that you will need more than you think you will to hold level at your standard of living. Here are some points to consider as you look at the long range picture:
1. Work a second job. You need more income now so you can save more for retirement. If you are healthy and the nest is empty, fill some spare time with more work. I am friends with a couple who each work full-time in conventional 9-to-5 office jobs. One spouse also works evenings and weekends selling ladies shoes in a mall department store on commission. She makes more money from that part-time job than she does at her regular job.
2. Become a single car family. Most married couples are two car families, even if the kids are gone and one spouse is not working. Operating costs including gas, insurance, maintenance, and repairs and carrying costs such as depreciation, taxes, and interest for a car or SUV can easily average $6,000 to $10,000 per year and even more for luxury vehicles. (Check Edmunds.com or ConsumerReports.org for data for your vehicle.) Gas prices are on the rise. Getting rid of the second vehicle can save you thousands of dollars for retirement. Commute with others, take public transit, share a ride with your spouse, or ride a bike instead. It can be done with careful planning.
3. Push your kids off the payroll. Many boomers find it emotionally difficult to completely cut the ties that financially bind them to their children. It starts with college expenses that drag on as the kids fail to graduate on time or need help paying off student loans. It continues with supporting boomerang kids. I know folks who continue to pay their kids car insurance or cell phone bills, even after the offspring are gainfully employed. When your child-rearing days are done, love your children, but be politely and firmly selfish about your money. You will need it when you retire more than they will now.
4. Start a spending fast. Most of us eat too much. We also spend too much. We often combine those vices by eating out regularly. Look at your budget and see if that's you. If so, go on an extreme spending fast. Vow to go an entire month without restaurant food. Also, avoid the drive-through and skip the exotic $5.00 cups of coffee. Stash the money you don't spend in your retirement savings. Think about what it will buy when you really need it. The next month, start another spending fast, this time targeting your cell phone or cable bill.
Most people who read these suggestions will roll their eyes and vow not to take such radical actions in their own lives, even if their retirement hangs in the balance. My message in response is this: The pain of financial discipline will be far less than the pain of retirement regrets.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Eat That Frog
There's an old saying that says...
"If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"
Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things to do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't...and let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it.
An Excerpt from
Eat That Frog!
by Brian Tracy The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the "Pareto Principle" after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the "vital few", the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many", the bottom 80 percent.
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.
Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.
Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.
Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.
Blogger's comment:(And the way you approach managing your relationships as well as your finances. EAT THE FROG or it will stare at you unkindly all day long.)
"If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"
Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things to do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't...and let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it.
Eat That Frog!
by Brian Tracy
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.
Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.
Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.
Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.
Blogger's comment:(And the way you approach managing your relationships as well as your finances. EAT THE FROG or it will stare at you unkindly all day long.)
1 comments: